What Is Hypnosis

If you were to type into Google or any search engine for that fact the above statement you would get 100’s if not 1000’s of different descriptions of what hypnosis actually is. There is no one universally agreed definition and different training schools all, have their own preferred definition. Here are some definitions found online; Hypnosis is a mental state (according to “state theory”) or imaginative role-enactment (according to “non-state theory”). One of the earliest definition of hypnosis in modern history was given by Braid, who coined the term “hypnotism” as an abbreviation for “neuro-hypnotism”, or nervous sleep, which he opposed to normal sleep, and defined as: A peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature.

Braid elaborated upon this brief definition in a later work: The real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition, is the induction of a habit of abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction, the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as, for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought. The hypnotic sleep, therefore, is the very antithesis or opposite mental and physical condition to that which precedes and accompanies common sleep.

Braid therefore defined hypnotism as a state of mental concentration which often led to a form of progressive relaxation termed “nervous sleep”. Later, in his The Physiology of Fascination (1855), Braid conceded that his original terminology was misleading, and argued that the term “hypnotism” or “nervous sleep” should be reserved for the minority (10%) of subjects who exhibited amnesia, substituting the term “monoideism”, meaning concentration upon a single idea, as a description for the more alert state experienced by the others. Other definitions are an altered state of consciousness, A heightened state of awareness or a deep trance like phenomenon.

How Hypnosis Works

There is no one true definition, no one correct definition of Hypnosis the important factor is that it works, it is pure suggestibility. We have turned this into an art form almost like training your body to play a sport or learn a martial art, we use the art of suggestion to help teach your mind a new skill, and we are all suggestible because if we weren’t we could not learn. Parents teaching children how to talk, walk, eat, play and toilet train all draw upon the suggestibility of the child. That is why no two children are the same. We are all suggestible and at certain times we are more suggestible than others.

Within our Hypnotherapy we guide you into a nice relaxed state where you are more susceptible to suggestions given for you betterment. Once in the correct state your mind is more open to suggestions for reprogramming or reframing the conscious reactions. This therefore will make the removal of negative habits relatively simple.

With some issues that have deep seated trauma Hypnosis does not work straight away, it is a process that takes time to teach and retrain your mind, almost like learning a new skill, so hypnosis could take several sessions to allow your brain to develop and re correct these thoughts. But in general habits and phobias would be resolved in one professional session or by listening to our tailored audio sessions at regular relaxing intervals. Areas such as sports performance would require several sessions to reach your goals depending on how far you want to go within your sport./p>